How do we save African elephants from extinction?

African elephants are being slaughtered for their ivory as a surprising consequences of the rise of Asian economies. Symbolic of wealth and prestige, ivory was once only affordable for a few. Now with hundreds of millions of newly rich people in Asia, demand has outstripped supply and elephants are being killed at a rate that will drive them to extinction in less than 15 years.

African governments are unable to stop the poaching - the price of ivory is driving impunity, corruption and is now under control of criminal cartels.

How do we stop this? What will it take to reverse this trend? Do we need to change cultures? Appealing for compassion in China, Thailand, Philippines? Is it about law enforcement?

We need some bright ideas from TEDsters who love African animals and who know how to cause change in Asia

Mar 4 2013:
Almost all of the recommended solutions fall into one or two categories. Economic and scientific remedies.

Paula, I am not a TED tree hugger .. I have had three jobs I retired from all three ... military, areonatical engineer, and state civil servant (law enforcement).

You want to save the elephant ..... there is a demand for the tusk (ivory) .... poachers are killing off elephants to supply the ivory to buyers.

Review the laws.

1) Poaching is illegal ... what is the punishment ... The consequences must out weight the rewards.

2) Getting caught with poached tusks .. what is the punishment ... same as above

3) Transporting poached ivory ... what is the punishment ... same as above

4) The immediate loss of all bank accounts ... property ... impounding of planes, ships, motor vehicles, etc ... used in the act of poaching or the transporting of poached goods. This would require cooperation from banks.

5) The diplomatic treaty with countries that poachers and recievers or traders in poached property will be subject to harsh laws and penalties to be agreed upon by the countries involved.

6) If your country is really serious about this then public execution of poachers would go a long way. Recommended.

When dealing with organized crime there can be no half way. Power is all they respect. Justice must be harsh and quick.

Economic and scientific solutions will not mean anything to organized crime .... they can and will overcome all of these efforts and laugh all the way to the bank.

Mar 2 2013:
The same issue facing the elephants is the same issue facing the Rhinos in South Africa, the same as the issue of oil spillage and global warming. Some people are hell-bent of making so much money at any cost; and there are voices of resistance.
This should be a joint effort of governments, the media, NGOs and local communities. It is an uphill task because one or all of these could still be contaminated by dirty money. But no one goes to a battle with a head filled with thoughts of defeat. If we are to win, we have to fight, and probably fight for long.

this is a petition Avaaz is running at the moment...Perhaps it may help a tiny bit ?
it is about the ivory trade inThailand,... but perhaps everything to raise awareness of the elephants' suffering will help.

Suzanne talks about growing your own clothes. I believe there are other talks about genetically growing leather and animal pelts and such. Imagine a pair of Nikes with real leather that was grown so that no animals had to be killed. This would save animals and allow us to have leather. IF we could find a way to genetically grow ivory then we have a supply to sell and can produce enough for the economics of "supply and demand"

Then we couple this with another Ted talk. ( I cannot remember the name) The idea was about changing the cultural mindset of a country. As I recall the general idea is that a county in central or south america has a social custom of older men ( 50 years or older) getting young girls (10, 12, 15 years old) and keeping them as trophy girlfriends, or worse. So the speaker of the Ted talk attacked it with commercials and social media etc with funny advertisements in which some old guy was always trying to get the young girl and never could. It became a hit and was so funny that in a matter of months the name of this character was entrenched so that the social acceptance of the older men and younger girl began to change.

If we combine these two ideas. Artificially grown, but real ivory, along with a brilliant campaign about the elephants then this may accomplish what is needed.

If someone knows of the Ted talk regarding the older men please post it. It was very interesting.

Mar 3 2013:
Agreed. It's the cultural view that needs to change. Buying ivory items needs to become a shameful activity, an embarrassment, a deed that reveals ignorance and thoughtlessness. Status should come from behaving in ways that are beneficial to others and the environment. (This is an issue that goes way beyond ivory, and a problem that exists in many cultures. Why is having enough money to waste and destroy resources something to be admired?)

Maybe advertisements with anti-ivory statements from prominent Asian film or music stars would help.

Feb 27 2013:
No doubt this needs a multi-pronged approach. But broad awareness must be in the mix. If the world, and most especially the asian cultures involved, could be made more aware of the brutality involved in taking ivory, much as the documentary The Cove did for dolphins I would think it could help quite a bit. But this is not a simple thing to do. In The Cove it seemed that many people in Japan were not aware of how a small number of their countrymen were profiting from the bloody way in which dolphins were harvested. I image that there is also a lack of awareness among many in asia in regards to elephants and ivory.

Mar 6 2013:
Another conservation advocacy group, the Environmental Investigation Agency, said Tuesday that Google Japan's shopping site now has 10,000 ads promoting ivory sales.
About 80 percent of the ads are for "hanko," small wooden stamps inlaid with ivory lettering that are widely used in Japan to affix signature seals to official documents; the rest are carvings and other small objects.
The trade is legal within Japan, but banned by Google's own policies. The EIA said hanko sales are a "major demand driver for elephant ivory."
"While elephants are being mass slaughtered across Africa to produce ivory trinkets, it is shocking to discover that Google, with the massive resources it has at its disposal, is failing to enforce its own policies designed to help protect endangered elephants," said Allan Thorton, EIA's U.S.-based president.
Google said in an emailed response to The Associated Press that "ads for products obtained from endangered or threatened species are not allowed on Google. As soon as we detect ads that violate our advertising policies, we remove them."
The EIA said it had written a letter to Google CEO Larry Page on Feb. 22 urging the company to remove the ads because they violate Google's own policies. It said Google had not responded to the letter or taken down the advertisements.
About 70 years ago, up to 5 million elephants were believed to have roamed the African continent. Today, just several hundred thousand are left.
As Asian economies have grown, so has their demand for ivory. Over the last 12 months, an estimated 32,000 elephants were killed in Africa, according to the Born Free Foundation, which says black-market ivory sells for as much as $1,300 per pound, a huge multibillion-dollar business.
CITES banned the international ivory trade in 1989, but the move did not address domestic markets. Since then, Japan has imported ivory stocks from Africa in at least two legal, controlled sales.
(continued in following post)

Mar 5 2013:
You won't find compassion among the rich or the government. The ones that seek the ivory do so in full knowledge of the consequences of their actions. They're rich and they care little for anything else. Law enforcement won't save all the elephants, but it would be a start. Such operations would likely be expensive and require a lot of manpower, but there's little else you can do when the men doing the harvesting are ready to kill people to get their ivory.

The other solution would be considerably funding for reserves and protected land, allowing the elephants to strive and to keep the poachers out.

Mar 5 2013:
Contrary to what another member posted, poaching of elephants has been there in India. Notably a forest-based bandit, Veerappan by name, had poaching elephants and smuggling sandalwood as his business but was killed by police 7-8 years back. Other than his, there have been no major gangs who had elephant poaching as their business in India. The reasons are :
1. Elephant is treated akin to God as the Elephant-faced god, Ganesha, is widely worshipped in India.
2. A large number of elephants are domesticated and it is a lovely sight to see bejeweled elephants in various processions. This has made elephants accessible to many and hence loved by most.

The actions I would suggest are :
1. Making a sustained campaign to make elephant a loved animal. Make them accessible to people so that people will know their value. Love for anything is more powerful than any other worldly thing. Use banner, radio, TV, pamphlets, statues, etc.
2. Identify the section of the people who work as poaching workers and provide them alternate means of earning and protection from poaching masters.
3. Find and shutdown the ivory transfer routes, borders, bank accounts, etc. Make a pact with neighbouring countries and announce big rewards for the heads of poachers. If generations of men can learn the knack of successful poaching, is it difficult to train a another bunch of men to go after those poachers and kill or capture them ?
4. If a premeditated murder of a human can warrant death sentence, it can be considered for killing an elephant also. The justice should be quick and almost instantaneous.
5. Identify the destinations markets, workshops, dealers, auctioneers, etc, and work with those governments to shut them down effectively. Try for international sanctions against those countries not curbing them effectively.
6. Finally, unless there is consumption there wouldn’t be a market for Ivory and hence there won’t be any poaching. Who is buying ivory products – identify and do an effective camp

Mar 4 2013:
Perhaps this should be a United Nations issue. There should be some leverage that Kenya could use to get China to control the market in ivory. China has invested heavily in Africa and Kenya in particular. Is there something that China wants from Kenya that Kenya can hold back until China stops the ivory market? China has a tremendous control over its own people, fabulously wealthy or not. China could stop the Chinese ivory trade, they need to be given a reason to do so.

Mar 1 2013:
Why can't the governments stop it? I do not understand this. Why doesn't the government send armed security to stop it? Entities like yours could raise capital in the US thereby leveraging your spending power converting dollars to your currency to support your activities. Like here in the US...illegal drugs are rampant....but I have never seen a Cuban Cigar. Perhaps you could be granted a contract to protect the Elephants and all wildlife if they won't do it. I think it's a shame...Africa is the most beautiful place on the planet. She has natural resources like no other. I wish the governments where able to shake the chains of colonialism...rid themselves of tribalism and want to better the lives of all their citizens. Rid themselves of the rich and poor....Perhaps reach out to the diaspora, victims of slavery to know who we are and where we came from. You could provide free trips to your country so the world could see how beautiful it is. If I can help, please let me know.

What do drugs do to the brain? They alter the brain chemistry to make one feel good, it’s the same with ivory or anything precious it’s actually mind altering so to change people’s minds in owning such mind altering products you will have to be just as mind altering within your re-education. Ask yourself has any amount of re-education worked within the drug trade? Not when there is so much money to be made especially now with the way the world economy is going.

I know people are going to say ivory & drugs are quite different. Try taking the wealth off a wealthy person & see what happens, you will witness very simular withdrawal symptoms in the way they react just like they did in the great depression, many went into deep mental depression & some of them committed suicide.

In regards to re-educating I don’t think they are going to help with this in let’s say China for instance in re-educating the newly found wealthy over there for starters but I could be wrong.

Feb 28 2013:
Nobody needs ivory. What right does anyone have to do this to elephants? Their grief, you can see it.
I have piano I love. once it would have had ivory keys. Now it has plastic ones. I accept that. Why would I want ivory at such a terrible price?
Let people invent an artificial ivory, I'm sure it can be done. artificial jewels of various kinds are close enough in many ways.

Feb 28 2013:
There is some information on elephant tusks at this link;http://elephant.elehost.com/About_Elephants/Anatomy/Dentition/dentition.html
It explains that about a quarter of the tusk is inside of the elephant, so poachers would still have a large amount of ivory to harvest.
Education is the key. When people become educated they are more apt to understand the connectedness of all life. They begin to understand how everything they do has a ripple effect.
In the case of rising wealth in Asian countries and the hunger to show wealth, one needs to ask; Do the people who buy ivory even care about the elephants? Would they stop if they knew? Would the poacher stop if he had access to work that he could do to feed his family and gradually acquire the material things he is willing to risk his life for, now?
Perhaps eco-tourism? There is a growing trend of eco-tourism and some governments are cashing in on it. Once established, local people benefit greatly from it, and can become very possessive about "their" animals, thwarting poachers of animals and plants. It is a long road, but it can be done.

Unfortunately, as long as there are people willing to pay the price, elephants will be slaughtered for their ivory, tigers killed for their penises, (females are killed when the poacher cannot tell the difference) and rhinos will be killed for the so-called aphrodisiac effect of their horns.

Feb 28 2013:
In addition to the plan we have so far, some enterprising science lab like the CSIRO could work on producing synthetic ivory. It is organic in origin afterall so you might be able to grow it in culture.

Feb 28 2013:
Hi Peter, synthetic ivory has been tried adn this hasn't really worked, the Chinese users will pay much more for the real thing because of it's association with the elephants. I would love help from a lab like CSIRO to help me to find a means of permenanently marking the ivory in our stockpiles so that it can be traced to ensure that it never enter the illegal markets and gets laundered into the legal markets.

Feb 28 2013:
You just need to make the synthetic ivory good enough so no-one can tell. That's why a biological mechanism would be best. I'm not talking about immitaion ivory I mean "synthetic" it's real ivory just made in a lab. Like synthetic diamonds and saphires etc. There are few natural stones used in jewellery anymore as the synthetic versions are so good.

Not sure evolution can work that quickly. There must be some other genetic reason perhaps?

Peter's idea of controlled tusk removal I think is a good one. And, as daft as this may sound, the fitting of prosthetic tusks anchored to the remaining real tusk stumps might enable continued normal feeding and mating behaviour. Given that elephants live for between 60-70 years, it would be time and money well spent. I guess the prosthetic tusks would also have to be coloured in some way so that poachers can see they aren't real.

Feb 28 2013:
In reading about tusks on the link I entered, the author also had this to say; Some likely reasons for the greater proportion of tuskless Asian elephants compared the African elephants may be due to strong selection in the past by humans killing the tusked male elephants and an gene in Asian elephants which is not as recessive.

Feb 28 2013:
Thanks Allan. Tusklessness is now prevalent in two African elephant populations - Murchisons Falls in Uganda and Addo in South Africa. I'm not sure that it is not a state you'd want elephants to be in - tusks evolved for a specific purpose, they are used in fighting, finding food, and even rescuing each other.

Feb 27 2013:
Perhaps a program of tusk removal and regulated sale of ivory would produce a supply large enough to lower the street value to the point where poaching wasn't worthwhile. It would mean the rangers would need to tranquilise any animal with large tusks to allow their removal and it would only be able to be done in good habitat where tusks are less used to gather food. Perhaps a trial in a small area to asses the effects of tusk removal on the long term survival of a herd would be a good place to start.

Comment deleted

Mar 6 2013:
McCrea-Steele said IFAW has advised Google on illicit trading, as well as China's Alibaba Group, which runs the popular e-commerce platform Taobao. She said both were "very responsive" and had taken action to stamp out illicit activities.
IFAW has also worked with eBay, which it once called "one of the main channels through which trafficking in wildlife and wildlife products are conducted online." The company imposed its own voluntary ban in 2007 after IFAW persuaded them that ivory was indeed being trafficked with the help of their site.
"They've cleaned up, that's sure," said Adrian Hiel, an IFAW official attending the CITES conference in the Thai capital. "But there are so many ads that come out every day, you have to be vigilant. You have to keep checking."
Even now, concerned Internet shoppers still allege ivory is being sold on eBay. One called attention to a carving of a rural Asian village scene selling for $1,000 that is labeled as "Fine Chinese Ox Bone." The item is advertised by a seller in Los Angeles with the note, "Ships to: Worldwide."
Hiel said it can be tough, based on photos alone, to determine whether such products are really elephant tusks. You can always make an educated guess based on where the object is being sold and how much it goes for. But "unless you buy it and examine it, it's hard to tell for sure what's legal and what's not."
"Our argument is that the onus should be on the seller to prove the legality of what they're selling," Hiel said. "Because law enforcement can't go around ordering stuff of eBay just to test the legality of it."
Dan Ashe, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said that when elephant poaching last reached crisis levels several decades ago, web-based trafficking was not something anybody had to consider.
Now, "Internet-based crime is an important aspect of control," he said. "It makes it much more difficult, but we have to deal with it."

Mar 6 2013:
Why can't law enforcement order products to see if they are legal? Then,if they aren't, charge a large fine to cover their operations. The websites could post warnings that this is being done. Wouldn't that get rid of most of the traffic overnight?

You see, I've been reading this about that: (eventually I realized this article is Mr.Long's pick)

BANGKOK (AP) — Conservationists say there's a new threat to the survival of Africa's endangered elephants that may be just as deadly as poachers' bullets: the black-market trade of ivory in cyberspace.
Illegal tusks are being bought and sold on countless Internet forums and shopping websites worldwide, including Internet giant Google, with increasing frequency, according to activists. And wildlife groups attending the 178-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species in Bangkok this week are calling on global law enforcement agencies to do something about it.
The elephant slaughter, which has reached crisis proportions unheard of in two decades, is largely being driven by skyrocketing demand in Asia, where tusks are often carved into tourist trinkets and ornaments.
"The Internet is anonymous, it's open 24 hours a day for business, and selling illegal ivory online is a low-risk, high-profit activity for criminals," Tania McCrea-Steele of the International Fund for Animal Welfare told The Associated Press on Tuesday from London.
In one investigation last year, IFAW found 17,847 elephant products listed on 13 websites in China. The country, which conservationists call the world's top destination for "blood ivory" from Africa, is not alone.
IFAW says illegal ivory trading online is an issue within the U.S., including on eBay, and it is rife on some websites in Europe, particularly nations with colonial links to Africa.
It is often advertised with code words like "ox-bone," ''white gold," ''unburnable bone," or "cold to the touch," and shipped through the mail.
(continued in following post)

Mar 5 2013:
One of the difficulties conservationists encounter is that anything that restricts the supply of ivory will tend to increase the price, making poaching more attractive. Unfortunately (for elephants) the available evidence (and there is very little) suggests that people will still buy ivory, even if the price is high, as long as they have the income to do so. I offer an economic analysis of the issues and some links to the literature here http://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/2013/03/can-evolution-save-the-elephant.html

Mar 4 2013:
What if there was a group of scientists that made a solution that would seep into elephant tusks and ultimately making less or undesirable to buyers or poachers, like when people used a special paint to mark arctic seal fur so they would be less desirable.

Mar 4 2013:
I'm sure this has been pointed out before, but I'd just like to mention again the prospects of domestication, or privatization, of the elephant.

Domestication has preserved many species of animals for, (I'm guessing) many generations. Dogs, rabbits, chickens, and other animals have had great succes. Despite the many abuses they suffer today, the one terminal privation they do not suffer from is extinction.

Domestication is not the easiest solution, but it is one guaranteed to work.

Mar 4 2013:
It would cost a lot of money. Sorry efforts towards this will continue to be minimal. There are far more important things to worry about than elephants. I'm an insensitive person but if you want truth above reassurance in this forum come to me.

Mar 4 2013:
Monetize the value to their survival. Making something illegal, i.e. alcohol, drugs, simply drives up the price and creates associated violence. When you remove the tusks, they cease to be elephants and become a man made version of an elephant. Pay the population which creates the poachers to monitor and document the elephants. Make the pay greater than what they can earn by poaching. If the elephants disappear, so do the well paying jobs. Economic problems typically require economic solutions.

Mar 3 2013:
I agree that removing tusks is a good deterrent of poachers seeking to cash in on some ivory, but doing this to all elephants as well as new born elephants would prove to be a rather exhausting task. It would be favorable if, eventually, long tusked elephants were bread out of the population due to artificial selection. Eventually it would be more beneficial and safer for elephants to have little or no tusks and these are the elephants that would live on to breed. Unfortunately elephants have very long life span so seeing such a mutation or alteration take place would take a very long time. Does anybody know if the elephant genome has been sequenced yet? If we could somehow target this gene and silence it somehow we could save a lot of elephants for generations to come. Does anybody else have an idea as to whether or not this is being looked into already?

Mar 3 2013:
Tranquilise then remove tusks so there's nothing to take. This is short term patch. Real problem is us. There is between 6 & 7 billion of us. We are a spreading virus from natures POV. Long term solution; 1-2 children per family across the globe. We need to stop spreading & slowly taking all wildlife habitat. It's that simple. There is simply no need to have this many humans. Especially you India! What would be a comfortable global population? A sustainable one for all life? 4 billion? 3?

Mar 3 2013:
How do we stop this? We Don't !!!
Short of lining the poachers & their employer-cartels and customers up against a wall,
there is no way to stop Elephant slaughter.
Goodbye Elephant.

Like the US Drug War. It becomes a lost cause, when Supply meets ceaseless Demand.
It will take identifying the retail customers and squeezing off Demand. But, like the Drug War,
It just doesn't work. Those Suppliers that need Demand, have that now.
Goodbye Elephant.

The biggest problem is, as always, corruption at the highest and lowest government levels.
Goodbye Elephant.

With the advent of US and some other nation's manufactured weapons and ammo,
the poor Elephant's haven't a chance.
Goodbye Elephant.

A story set during the 1800's--
The trapper, Jim Bridger and his mountain men caused the Beaver's near extinction.
Supplying the Demand for Beaver pelts used to make Tall Hats.
But, when Tall Hats went out of style, so did Demand for Beaver pelts.
It was too late by that time to save the Beavers.
Goodbye Beaver.
Beavers populations have somewhat rebounded since then. But today remain endangered.
===
What will it take to reverse this trend?
It is self-extinguishing upon the death of the last ivory tusk Elephant. Rhino's are now at risk also.
Goodbye Elephant.
===
Do we need to change cultures?
NO. world-wide humankind is about taking, seldom giving.
Goodbye Elephant.
===
Appealing for compassion in China, Thailand, Philippines?
NO. Consumerism is about getting products, not about how they are gotten.
Tree Huggers & Whale Savers never really win. They just beg money and
make great videos.
Goodbye Elephant.
===
Is it about law enforcement?
We would hope so, but actually there is not much they can do.
They act "after the crime has been committed".
Goodbye Elephant.

I have spent some time is both South Africa and Kenya (good luck in the elections) travelling and volunteering in wildlife preserves and schools and have made many friends who work with wildlife.
One thing I see from this distance is the large spike in the amount of poaching and consequent animal deaths that showed up shortly after China began getting so many construction and road contracts in Africa and bringing in their people to do the work.
I don't think that correlation has been looked at. But if the stuff is being transported out of the country in diplomatic pouches as has been alleged, your government is going to have to be willing to break diplomatic ties with certain Asian counties and I don't think they will do that, not even if there was only one elephant left in the world!
I know many of the preserves with rhino are clipping their horns, but with elephants in the wild (or rhino in the wild) I understand that this is not feasible.
However, the proposal to auction off the seized tusk and horn MIGHT put a dent in the illegal trade, as well as raising money for more enforcement, better pay, weapons and training for the rangers.
I'd love to hear more about what your organisation thinks and what it proposes to try . . .

Comment deleted

Mar 2 2013:
it doesn't take many years to go through the remaining herds at that rate. 20 years is all. But extinction isn't the big thing, as we are all headed there eventually, it's how those animals, and many other species, are treated.

Mar 2 2013:
I believe if we were to invest in Africa, in infrastructure, jobs, education in the Local communities in these areas; poaching would slowly crumble. If we give people another choice rather than poaching to make a living. This would not satisfy demand in Asia however it would have the potential to remove supply and maybe just maybe give a sense of pride to local communities in their wildlife, a sense to protect it. And with that step poaching would be made all the more harder.

Mar 2 2013:
China is investing quite a lot in Africa. It has an embassy in Kenya and in other African nations and makes a show, maybe sincere at some level, of proclaiming how hard they are on smugglers who bring illegal ivory into China. The economic quid pro quo should start with China, and not to give poachers an alternate way to make a living, which I do not believe will work to any significant degree in any case, but as leverage to make the Chinese officials look for better ways to locate and prosecute smugglers and choke off the supply lines. No doubt there are also issues with corruption within the African governments as well, which need to be addressed.

I imagine Paula Kahumbu, and the organizations she works with, have a fair idea where the largest barriers exist and some idea of what works and what doesn't . I know that animal rights acitivism has grown a lot within China. I wonder how much awareness these organizations have of the elephant/ivory issue and whether increasing their awareness would help increase pressure from within to address this problem..

Mar 2 2013:
We need to first understand the reasons behind their extinction. If humans poaching is responsible,it is bit difficult as there is no way one can remove "GREED" from the humans. Anything other than that is a possibility.

My theory of life on earth is- " when god gave life on earth, first plants, trees flowers etc were created, when he looked down he said still looks dry, so made birds ( added some colors) but still something was missing, so made animals, still something was missing so made under water life and so on except human beings. Everything looked so beautiful, god fell in love with it. But, his principle is creation and than destruction. So now how to destroy this!! "HE MADE HUMANS IN THE LAST" to destroy everything.

How much ever any one tries, you can't beat god's will, can you?

Comment deleted

Feb 28 2013:
This suggestion makes my teeth hurt - imagine removing teeth from an elephant - they are embedded in the jaw by about half a a meeter and the pulp cavity extends more than a meter ! An elephant with a toothache will be a very dangerous animal

Feb 28 2013:
Since this an issue of sustainability, we should consider the economic, social, and environmental impacts of elephant poaching and what can be done to stop it. But I believe that the economic portion is largely in effect here, so I’ll predominantly address that.
One of the main problems is that poachers are offered such huge sums of money to kill elephants for their tusks. To a poor man struggling to feed his family, the life of a single elephant is certainly worth being able to support his family. Thus, people have an economic incentive to poach elephants. This overcomes any idea of protecting the environment or cultural connection with the elephant.
So how does one fight against such a strong incentive as money? I think we can turn this system around and use money as an incentive for saving the elephants. Tourism is a huge source of revenue for countries with big game populations. Tens of thousands of tourists per year visit countries to go on safaris and see the lion, the giraffe, and especially the majestic elephant in its natural habitat. But what happens when the elephant is extinct? Will people still pay thousands of dollars to see the empty plains? They will not. So in the long run, poaching is actually hurting the economies of these countries.
I believe that spreading awareness of this idea is key in changing the mindset that poaching is a legitimate way of life. The governments should offer stakes in tourist businesses so locals can profit from them and not feel the need to poach. Local watchdog groups can be formed to identify potential poachers and stop it before it happens.
There are many ways to help reduce poaching, but it won’t be done here. Work must be put in at the local level to spread awareness of the importance of the elephant, and show the people that is profitable to save the elephants.

Feb 28 2013:
Greetings Mustafa, thank you for this very pracical approach. i have heard the economic argument and I guess I feel that it ignores the problems with globalization, and it also ignores spiritual values. What it also ignores history and the evidence that species have gone extinct due to over harvesting. We are working on a number of ideas to create whistle blowing facility so that anyone anywhere can report poachers, dealers, gangs etc, but this has to be combined with special teams to conduct investigations, prosecution and courts. Raising the funds to set this up is my challenge

Feb 28 2013:
This is a very noble cause, and I respect what you're trying to do. Is there any way to allocate funds from tourist revenues towards elephant and overall wildlife conservation? If elephant poaching continues, tourist revenues will dry up and the government could lose money. Is that incentive enough for them to help fight poaching?

Feb 28 2013:
It's money. It's as simple as that.
Money has to end in one regard in order for people to stop doing things for money.
Money is the reason they kill female babies or fetuses in India. It's too expensive to a family to have a baby girl.
But it doesn't matter what it is.
Some comments made here: "People are willing to pay the price - pay - People who buy ivory - notice the word "buy" - tourism meaning tourist dollars, i.e. money - ivory harvesting, meaning making money for survival, a job
Yet people will say again and again, you can't blame money; money is not the root of all evil.
Well, yes it is because it is the reason for corruption, greed, crime, horrible acts against humans or animals, etc.

My brother is a big game hunter. Travels the world over, killing all the magnificent beasts of the earth.
Now that he is much older, I don't think he does it much any more. I could not see how a two-foot piece of an elephant's
leg was more beautiful than the actual beast roaming its lands, especially since they could always be shot with a camera, captured forever in all their real beauty and letting them live would always keep them alive.
I asked why he kept doing this? He replied that the elephants live on areas of land set aside solely for their survival but as they populate they become over-populated and have to be thinned out. Plus, he said the meat goes to the people in the area. What a crock of you-know-what. Of course if you crowd them together, you can then justify what one calls "over-population" so that you can continue killing. It's sickening.
The real reason he does this is it is a way to continue killing his father, who was a horribly cruel, sadistic man. We suffered extreme violence under his hands. He has killed them all, several times over and mounted them everywhere. He is basically a serial-killer only he killed animals.

It all has to be confronted by people who won't stop until it all stops. Same thing religious spokespeople should spend time doing.

Feb 28 2013:
So do you think people continue big-game hunting because they find pleasure in killing, or having power or control over nature? An if so, how do we change this mindset that killing is good, and what alternatives can we offer such people?

Feb 28 2013:
Wow, that's a very powerful and sad personal story. I wish that visitors to Africa could experience the opposite, a peace associated with reconnection with the land of our origin, and a relationship with the animals that we evolved with. I have never understood the mindset of hunters but that's just me. The ivory trade is not about hunting, it's about supplying a valuable resource to people who have no connection to the animals. Perhaps if every Asian user of ivory had to actually shoot the elephant, they wouldn't be quite so interested in the ivory.

I'm not sure but I think they do but do elephant tusks regrow & how long does it take for tusks to regrow?

The reason I ask is if we are serious about saving these animals from extinction farm them for their tusks, I know this wouldn’t be an easy task but it’s worth a thought. Approach someone who is willing to do this that has the finances to do so. I know we like to see these animals in their natural habitat without human interference but what is the alternative? I would also consider doing this with other animals as well like the rhino.

Feb 28 2013:
Rhino farming is actually established and underway in South Africa right now. The horn can be safely cut off without any harm to the animal, and they grow back within 18 months, making this a profitable and sustainable venture. The link I used is here:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2195803/Farming-rhinos-legalising-sale-horns-worth-gold-save-extinction-claims-farmer.html
The problem with trying the same with elephants is the material of the horn. Rhino horns are made out of keratin, like human hair or fingernails. And like hair and fingernails, a rhino's horn can be cut off safely (if done properly) and grow back.
However, elephant tusks are made out of ivory. They are essentially modified teeth, and what happens when you pull a tooth out? It bleeds. It hurts. It can get infected. The problem is that teeth still having living tissue and nerves inside them. An elephant can have nerves going all the way to the tip of its tusks. Thus, it would be very difficult to remove tusks safely, and probably impossible to do so without harming the elephant.

Good luck on this because as ivory become scarcer the price of ivory will obviously go up which will in turn impact in how poachers work, they will become a lot more sophisticated just like the drug trade. Also the more money made from such products the more corruption.

The Asians have always loved ivory as they have of Rhino horns, the market is there to be filled & no amount of education is going to stop this supply & demand just like the drug trade.

Feb 27 2013:
Prevention of any kind begins with identifying something as a priority. Perhaps with all the other health concerns in Africa the plight of the Elephants will not receive the attention it deserves. The National Wildlife Foundation surely (though in the U.S.) have a vehicle in the matter. I would imagine that National Geographics has in interest in preserving the life of the African Elephant as well. It is a sad event and one my heart bleeds for.

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